The present invention relates to pallets, and in particular sheet material pallets for transporting and storing items.
Pallets and platforms for bulk storage and transportation of materials constitute a multi-billion dollar industry. Their use is pervasive in a myriad of commercial applications, e.g., for the storage of raw and finished products in manufacturing facilities, for the transportation of finished products and materials from manufacturing facilities to distributors and retail outlets, and for storing finished materials in warehousing and retail facilities. Pallets are extremely useful for storing and transporting material since they provide an elevated support platform which protects the stored goods from spilled materials, etc. and allow conventional equipment such as a forklift to readily move large quantities of materials stored on the pallet.
Pallets are typically constructed of wood slats. Such pallets are suitable for a number of applications, especially where very heavy loads are encountered. However, wood pallets are heavy and not easily disposable or recyclable. Certain industries, such as the food industry, are extremely interested in replacing wood pallets with light weight and easily disposable/recyclable pallets, so long as such pallets can meet certain strength and durability requirements.
As an alternative to wooden pallets, pallets have been constructed of sheet material such as corrugated board material, e.g., corrugated paperboard and the like. Existing pallet constructed of sheet material have met with only limited success due to the drawbacks of limited strength and durability. Furthermore, only limited cost savings have been achieved in existing sheet material pallets due to the complexity of manufacture and assembly arising out of the multiple blanks and other pieces required to make a complete pallet. The following patents exemplify existing pallets constructed of sheet material.
Yamaguchi et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,714,026, discloses a pallet including a deck board made from laminated corrugated fiberboard. Each of the legs is formed by a square-tubular frame made of corrugated fiberboard in which a pad or pads of plastic resin is/are inserted.
Nymoen, U.S. Pat. No. 4,185,565, discloses a two-piece corrugated pallet formed a base member and a platform member of corrugated board material. The base piece is formed by three parallel spaced channel sections connected by platform reinforcing portions. The platform member is secured to the base piece.
Winebarger, U.S. Pat. No. 4,979,446, discloses a corrugated pallet formed from interconnected base and deck members constructed from creased and scored rectangular blanks to comprise a solid core of adjacent vertically oriented panels surrounded by an outer covering of perimetric horizontally and vertically running panels. Once the base members are assembled using a U-shaped slot arrangement, a separate deck board is attached thereto.
Osborne et al., U.S. Pat. No. 3,666,165, discloses a pallet having four-way fork entry capability. Tubular members are inserted into a folded sheet of corrugated material to form the runners. A separate panel is required to form the deck.
Quaintance, U.S. Pat. No. 3,911,834, discloses a pallet made of foldable materials having four-way fork entry capability. A plurality of runners are formed integrally from a blank forming the deck and take the form of hollow elongated channels.
Farrell, U.S. Pat. No. 2,576,715, discloses a fiber board material pallet having a wrap-around upper and lower deck formed of an unitary sheet of material. It is disclosed that the wrap sections may completely overlap to form a top wall of double thickness.
None of these aforementioned patents, however, satisfactorily meet the present need for a sheet material pallet for use with a variety of material handling equipment, which provides acceptable four way entry for both fork-lift and pallet jack handling, which possesses enhanced stacking strength, heavy static load bearing ability and improved stability, yet remains simple enough in design for efficient manufacture and assembly.